Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 7/15/26: NY Ban On Data Centers, Scahill Vs Ro On Oct 7, Michigan Elections

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7/15/26: NY Ban On Data Centers, Scahill Vs Ro On Oct 7, Michigan Elections · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
0:01
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0:33
Speaker 3: New York Governor Kathi HOCl announced New York will become
0:37
Speaker 3: the first set to impose a data center mor a
0:40
Speaker 3: ttorium yesterday. Let's take a listen here to Governor vocals
0:44
Speaker 3: press conference.
0:45
Speaker 4: Hice hyperscale AI data centers consume enormous amounts of power,
0:50
Speaker 4: truly threatening to outpace our grid's capacity, and they drive
0:56
Speaker 4: a cost for local rate bears, and I refuse use
1:00
Speaker 4: to let those costs be passed on to New Yorkers
1:03
Speaker 4: who already paid too much for the utility bills. These
1:07
Speaker 4: data centers require millions of gallons of water, straining the
1:12
Speaker 4: local supplies, and when powered by fossil fuels, they drive
1:17
Speaker 4: up our carbon footprint. They occupy massive amounts of land,
1:23
Speaker 4: potentially displacing agricultural space and open spaces. The bottom line
1:29
Speaker 4: is products shouldn't arrive with a higher utility bill, deleted
1:33
Speaker 4: water supply, or noise pollution. So we have no choice
1:38
Speaker 4: but to address these challenges created by these massive facilities.
1:44
Speaker 4: That is why they all be signing the nation's first
1:49
Speaker 4: ever statewide moratorium on hyper scale data centers.
1:54
Speaker 5: There you have it.
1:55
Speaker 3: The political sprint to out anti data center other called
2:00
Speaker 3: titians is a foot I think that's fairly obvious. But
2:03
Speaker 3: Kathy Hoko obviously is a Democrat. And let's look at
2:06
Speaker 3: John Fetterman, Democratic senator from neighboring Pennsylvania, who responded to
2:12
Speaker 3: a headline about Hope's decision with China wins taking the
2:16
Speaker 3: Silicon Valley talking point just at face value, not entirely
2:20
Speaker 3: surprising from Fetterment, of course, But why is this happening?
2:24
Speaker 3: Obviously here on the show, we've been covering the data
2:27
Speaker 3: center politics and substance for a while. But I want
2:30
Speaker 3: to now put up this other headline. This is the
2:32
Speaker 3: next element. A majority of Americans now support seizing wealth
2:36
Speaker 3: from the AI industry. So polling, this is a seventeen
2:41
Speaker 3: hundred adult poll, sixty nine percent of US employees support
2:46
Speaker 3: forcing AI companies to transfer fifty percent of their stock
2:49
Speaker 3: into a public wealth fund. That is the Bernie Sanders idea.
2:53
Speaker 3: This was a poll done by Beera site, a national
2:56
Speaker 3: pull done by Beer Site, So obviously the politics of
2:59
Speaker 3: the are pretty clear. I don't know if John Fetterman
3:04
Speaker 3: there's too much Ryan about the people of Pennsylvania think
3:08
Speaker 3: on the Data Center moratory in question. But Kathy Hochel, who,
3:11
Speaker 3: to be honest, I'm not fully sure what her ideological
3:15
Speaker 3: commitment actually is on this, but she's very clearly reading
3:20
Speaker 3: the signs from the public at this point.
3:23
Speaker 6: We talked a couple of weeks ago about that really
3:25
Speaker 6: fascinating rant that Alex carp the Palteer CEO, had had
3:29
Speaker 6: on CNBC. We're tucked into the middle of it. He said,
3:33
Speaker 6: what you guys don't understand by hyping up the potential
3:37
Speaker 6: of AI to have this revolutionary, disruptive capacity and to
3:41
Speaker 6: basically eliminate labor, which is which is the goal of
3:44
Speaker 6: you know, which is effectively the goal of this industry.
3:49
Speaker 6: What you guys are doing is you are creating in
3:52
Speaker 6: the public the appetite to rewrite the entire social contract.
3:56
Speaker 6: And what he said, in particular is that you're going
3:58
Speaker 6: to give us a wealth text. You're going to going
4:00
Speaker 6: to get a slam with on. The Washington Post had
4:01
Speaker 6: an article yesterday which owned by a billionaire, kind of
4:04
Speaker 6: warning that the quote unquote, the left, you know, sees
4:08
Speaker 6: an opportunity to push forward with a with a wealth tax,
4:12
Speaker 6: and that is he is.
4:13
Speaker 7: They are correct, and Alex carp is correct.
4:16
Speaker 6: It's not just a wealth tax to your point, it's
4:18
Speaker 6: this it's this Sanders idea, which to me.
4:20
Speaker 7: Is a little bit half baked.
4:22
Speaker 6: I'm all for it, like I'm all for the discussion
4:24
Speaker 6: of it. And when whenever we start talking about you know,
4:28
Speaker 6: social and public ownership of the kind of direction of
4:32
Speaker 6: the economy, like as somebody who believes in democracy, I
4:35
Speaker 6: think that's a good thing.
4:37
Speaker 7: But you start to then think, well, why why stop there?
4:40
Speaker 6: You know, Trump was like, Hey, if the US is
4:42
Speaker 6: going to help Intel, we want ten percent of Intel.
4:44
Speaker 6: Say okay, yeah, Trump, Trump makes a good point. And
4:47
Speaker 6: what's interesting about the and I'm curious for you know,
4:50
Speaker 6: how you're how you're thinking.
4:53
Speaker 7: On this entire idea of a sovereign wealth fund.
4:57
Speaker 6: But so yeah, like I'll stop there before I ramble on,
5:01
Speaker 6: but you know, where are you on this kind of
5:03
Speaker 6: just on the principle, the idea of kind of an
5:05
Speaker 6: American sovereign wealth fund. Right now, they're talking about fuel
5:09
Speaker 6: you know, fueling it with with AI companies. But Trump,
5:12
Speaker 6: of course is like what I was saying is like,
5:14
Speaker 6: you know, these pieces of other companies and AI companies
5:17
Speaker 6: aren't necessarily profitable anyway at this point, but obviously they
5:22
Speaker 6: could be, you know, in the not too distant future.
5:27
Speaker 3: You know, I see sovereign wealth funds as basically elite
5:30
Speaker 3: slush funds, and so I know that's not what Sanders
5:33
Speaker 3: is envisioning, obviously. I just think it's so easy for
5:35
Speaker 3: them to become that, especially in this environment where American
5:40
Speaker 3: politics are flush with so much special interest cash. We
5:44
Speaker 3: just have a system where our politics have been so
5:48
Speaker 3: easily corrupted by some of the same people that would
5:52
Speaker 3: find ways to benefit from a sovereign wealth fund. I
5:54
Speaker 3: don't particularly like the idea just because I feel like
5:57
Speaker 3: I know what it would become very quickly. But at
6:00
Speaker 3: the same time, I mean, I'm eager, to your point,
6:03
Speaker 3: to hear ideas about guard rails, about how something like
6:06
Speaker 3: that would work.
6:07
Speaker 5: I don't know.
6:08
Speaker 3: I just have a hard time seeing it working in
6:10
Speaker 3: a way that would not just have these same olig
6:14
Speaker 3: archs find ways to benefit themselves over and over again.
6:17
Speaker 3: But something needs to be done, because that's where you
6:20
Speaker 3: have someone who's been seen as sort of moderate centrist
6:24
Speaker 3: like Kathy Hochel obviously closing up to New York City
6:27
Speaker 3: Mayor Mom Donnie after she saw the massive loitical success
6:31
Speaker 3: that he had both in the primary the general election
6:33
Speaker 3: against Andrew Pomo and now as governor. He's very popular,
6:36
Speaker 3: and I think she's picking up all that. And Republicans
6:39
Speaker 3: are nowhere to be seen really in this conversation unless
6:42
Speaker 3: they're sounding like John Fetterman, which is, we have to
6:44
Speaker 3: do this to defeat China and going full inst wonderful
6:49
Speaker 3: Kevin O'Leary and making that argument. Otherwise they just don't
6:52
Speaker 3: really want to talk about it. The problem for Republicans
6:55
Speaker 3: the Fetterman's of the world and the ox Carts of
6:57
Speaker 3: the world. As he points out, this experiment is being
7:00
Speaker 3: run in communities around the country right now as we Hyperscale,
7:04
Speaker 3: which was initiated by the Trump administration when he came
7:07
Speaker 3: in and did what was it called Operation Stargate Project Stargate,
7:10
Speaker 3: like day two of his presidency, and as the experiment
7:14
Speaker 3: is being run, people are saying, no, we don't like this,
7:16
Speaker 3: it is not good for us. And so the opinion
7:19
Speaker 3: is either Fetterman style carp style, we know what's best
7:23
Speaker 3: for you, you are reacting poorly to something that's actually
7:28
Speaker 3: to your benefit, but we know we know the truth,
7:31
Speaker 3: or to do what Hopal did.
7:34
Speaker 6: And to me, a Somern wealth fund is a bit
7:36
Speaker 6: of an accounting and a bureaucratic gimmick. But if if
7:40
Speaker 6: you need that gimmick to get the public excited about it,
7:44
Speaker 6: then then okay, I get it. Let's take well, you
7:46
Speaker 6: know we've got Norway cut our Uaea, staud Arabia Alaska.
7:51
Speaker 6: If you need that gimmick to tell Alaskans, hey, look,
7:55
Speaker 6: our oil resources are going to go into this wealth
7:58
Speaker 6: fund and then the wealth is going to be used
8:01
Speaker 6: precisely for this. And in Alaska it's like basically rebates
8:05
Speaker 6: that goes out to people, and and that direct observable
8:09
Speaker 6: connection between one, two, and three produces public trust that
8:14
Speaker 6: allows it to be created.
8:16
Speaker 7: So that's a good point. So I get it, Like,
8:18
Speaker 7: that's that's worth it.
8:20
Speaker 6: But what a sovereign wealth fund basically is is is
8:23
Speaker 6: the government like it is it is taxation, and then
8:26
Speaker 6: you're you're taxing the money and then you're you're investing
8:29
Speaker 6: it and spending it like that's it's the same thing.
8:32
Speaker 6: But people don't really kind of trust the government to
8:35
Speaker 6: do that, you know, they think.
8:36
Speaker 3: Because you'd be investing it and spending it in places
8:39
Speaker 3: where your donors are going to benefit or in places
8:42
Speaker 3: where you know, for Trump, I mean that's pretty obvious.
8:45
Speaker 3: It's kind of what He's already sort of operating a
8:48
Speaker 3: sovereign wealth at some point.
8:50
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I think people believe that a sovereign wealth
8:53
Speaker 6: fund is a little bit easier to keep their eye
8:55
Speaker 6: on than the entire behemoth of the federal government. And
8:58
Speaker 6: so if that, if we need that layer of separation
9:02
Speaker 6: to start to get people excited about the idea. The
9:05
Speaker 6: bigger problem to me is just the wealth overall. Like
9:09
Speaker 6: as as Western economies are growing at about one percent
9:14
Speaker 6: a year, and you know, oligarchic wealth is growing at
9:18
Speaker 6: somewhere between five and twenty.
9:20
Speaker 7: Percent a year.
9:21
Speaker 6: Like the wealth that they are accumulating has to come
9:24
Speaker 6: from somewhere if it's not coming from economic growth, and
9:27
Speaker 6: that somewhere is everybody else. And the way that exponential
9:32
Speaker 6: returns work, it's not long before they go from you know,
9:36
Speaker 6: the top point zh one percent owning ten percent to
9:38
Speaker 6: twenty thirty, forty fifty and then basically we're just renting
9:41
Speaker 6: from them, and it's we've reproduced feudalism, and we're like, oh,
9:45
Speaker 6: that whole democratic thing that we did for that was
9:48
Speaker 6: that was a short experiment. We're actually right, you know,
9:51
Speaker 6: right back to where we were for thousands, thousands of years.
9:55
Speaker 5: Yeah.
9:55
Speaker 3: No, I think that's a good way to look at it,
9:56
Speaker 3: or it's i mean, not a good way to look
9:58
Speaker 3: at it, but it's appliesible, get it. But that's the thing,
10:01
Speaker 3: Like to me, it's not even just the wealth that's
10:03
Speaker 3: the problems the distribution of it. I think that's probably
10:05
Speaker 3: the case with you as well, Ryan, and people also
10:08
Speaker 3: are wondering. This is one of the things that tech
10:10
Speaker 3: guys don't get. We talked about this a couple of
10:11
Speaker 3: weeks ago. They want to know why the wealth has
10:15
Speaker 3: to come from something that seems so ridiculous, right, like,
10:19
Speaker 3: why is the wealth that we may learn this from
10:22
Speaker 3: the markets actually sooner rather than later and tragically probably
10:25
Speaker 3: in some cases. We want to know why the wealth
10:29
Speaker 3: has to be generated all based on these data centers
10:33
Speaker 3: and the transmission of so much people want to unplug.
10:37
Speaker 3: If you look at pulling, they want to unplug, not completely,
10:40
Speaker 3: but more and more. And so it just feels like
10:43
Speaker 3: it's not a fair system to people to end up
10:48
Speaker 3: having their bills in localities spike for something they're not
10:51
Speaker 3: bought in on in the first place.
10:53
Speaker 6: And meanwhile, this is coming while the New York grid
10:55
Speaker 6: has been massively disinvested from and put a D four.
10:58
Speaker 6: Mom Donnie keeps warning people, hey, guys, thermostats at seventy
11:01
Speaker 6: eight polase, which continues to produce kind of a freak
11:05
Speaker 6: out on Twitter from people who are like, how dare
11:08
Speaker 6: you tell me? It's guys, it's not an order. It's
11:11
Speaker 6: just we're all in this together, and if the grid
11:13
Speaker 6: goes down, you're not gonna have ac either.
11:16
Speaker 7: So let's all do the.
11:18
Speaker 6: Best we can do unplug what we don't need to
11:19
Speaker 6: have plugged in, and to push our thermostats up as
11:23
Speaker 6: as high as we can comfortably withstand it so that
11:26
Speaker 6: the grid does not order yet it's not an order
11:29
Speaker 6: yet yet.
11:31
Speaker 7: Well, people are like socialism doesn't work.
11:33
Speaker 6: As if like mom Donnie should have like rebuilt the
11:35
Speaker 6: grid in like January of the first year of the Star.
11:39
Speaker 7: Now, that would have been impressed.
11:41
Speaker 3: That would be a generational political.
11:43
Speaker 6: Cub yeap while he was shoveling this now all right, Well, Emily,
11:47
Speaker 6: thank you so much and happy travels.
11:50
Speaker 3: Thanks Ryan, and thanks to everybody for helping out. Well,
11:53
Speaker 3: I was a deal with family stuff.
11:54
Speaker 7: Appreciate it. You got it.
11:58
Speaker 6: Representative Rocanna joined our drop site news live stream yesterday morning.
12:02
Speaker 6: I wanted to roll some of the more interesting parts
12:05
Speaker 6: of the conversation between him and Jeremy ska Hill.
12:09
Speaker 8: Give you another example where you say it's okay to
12:11
Speaker 8: continue any level of support for an openly genocidal society
12:15
Speaker 8: that has mass murdered eighty thousand people, more than three
12:18
Speaker 8: hundred media workers, has invaded Lebanon, has bombed Iran, and
12:22
Speaker 8: you're saying, oh, but we need to protect civilians. This
12:24
Speaker 8: isn't about protecting civilians. The greatest threat to their civilians
12:27
Speaker 8: is their policy. And so I don't understand why you
12:30
Speaker 8: have even one qualified shred of support for a sniper
12:35
Speaker 8: mass murderer masquerading as the only democracy in the Middle East.
12:39
Speaker 9: Well, but I'm not saying that the United States should
12:42
Speaker 9: be supporting the funding for Irondome, just so be very Claire.
12:45
Speaker 5: I'm saying that we shouldn't be restricting Israel from.
12:49
Speaker 9: Being able to get the Iron Dome or be able
12:52
Speaker 9: to develop the Iron Dome to technology.
12:54
Speaker 8: Well, I stopped there. Everything else you're saying it makes
12:56
Speaker 8: so much sense. Why do you stop there? It feels
12:57
Speaker 8: to me like you're trying to have it both ways
12:59
Speaker 8: on this issues. You can say, well, I actually support,
13:02
Speaker 8: you know, defending the Israeli civilians. You're not defending Israeli
13:04
Speaker 8: civilians with that policy. You're defending the sniper's ability to
13:07
Speaker 8: keep killing because it won't face the ultimate accountability, which
13:10
Speaker 8: is a total embargo on all support for an apartheid stay.
13:13
Speaker 8: Number seventh, Did Palestinians have a right to attack Israeli
13:17
Speaker 8: military basis in the Gaza envelope?
13:18
Speaker 10: Yes? Or no?
13:20
Speaker 9: I mean I think October seven's attack was a terrorist attack,
13:23
Speaker 9: so I don't.
13:23
Speaker 8: As a terrorist attack when they the first targets that
13:26
Speaker 8: were hit on the morning of October seventh were multiple
13:28
Speaker 8: military bases. Did Palestinian forces have a right to attack
13:33
Speaker 8: those military bases?
13:34
Speaker 9: I am not for violent violence again in any way.
13:40
Speaker 9: I mean I am for making sure that we uh.
13:44
Speaker 10: And the I have a right to do it.
13:46
Speaker 8: Congressmen, do they have a right to attack Israeli soldiers?
13:50
Speaker 9: No, I'm not going to say that Hamas had a
13:52
Speaker 9: right to attack Israeli soldiers or kill Israelis like I don't.
13:56
Speaker 9: I don't think that advances peace or or advance is.
14:02
Speaker 5: Palestinian statehood.
14:05
Speaker 8: Does Israel have a right to drop a single bomb
14:07
Speaker 8: in Gaza in response to October seventh?
14:11
Speaker 9: I believe Israel had the right to get people who
14:15
Speaker 9: killed the civilians, but not in the way they went
14:19
Speaker 9: about it, which I've said is genocide.
14:22
Speaker 8: But the Palestinians don't have a right to attack the
14:24
Speaker 8: very military bases that are running the killing operations on
14:28
Speaker 8: October sixth, twenty twenty three or October fifth, twenty twenty three.
14:31
Speaker 8: It's a double standard. You're you're afraid of violin prohamas.
14:34
Speaker 8: That's what this is boiled down to, because I bet
14:37
Speaker 8: if we were talking off the record privately and I
14:39
Speaker 8: said this to you, you would acknowledge that people around
14:42
Speaker 8: the world have a right to resistance by all means necessary.
14:46
Speaker 8: I've always been for legal resistance, and you're saying that
14:49
Speaker 8: there is no condition under which a Palestinian has a
14:52
Speaker 8: right to kill soldiers who are posted at military bases,
14:57
Speaker 8: enforcing by murder and force, star and deprivation an illegal
15:02
Speaker 8: occupation of Gaza. That's what doesn't make sense to me.
15:04
Speaker 8: I don't see how you reconcile those two.
15:06
Speaker 9: Positions, because I think that the armed resistance is only
15:12
Speaker 9: going to be in effect.
15:14
Speaker 5: They've given the power to frenchials.
15:16
Speaker 9: Is similar to what Gandhi thought in terms of how
15:18
Speaker 9: he took on the British Empire, and that having a
15:22
Speaker 9: moral force of civil resistance and appealing to the world's
15:27
Speaker 9: conscience is going to be much better chance of getting dignity.
15:31
Speaker 8: Twenty piece nineteen, the Palestinians organized the Great March of Return,
15:36
Speaker 8: which was a mass, nonviolent mobilization at the gates of
15:40
Speaker 8: the concentration camp, walls and fence in Gaza. And you
15:43
Speaker 8: know what Israeli soldiers did. Representative Nay had a competition
15:46
Speaker 8: to who could shoot the most knee caps of Palestinians.
15:49
Speaker 8: People around the world have a right to resistance by
15:52
Speaker 8: all means necessary.
15:53
Speaker 10: I think I've always.
15:54
Speaker 8: Been resistance, you know how peaceful resistancing the Israelis.
16:00
Speaker 5: Against under segregation.
16:01
Speaker 9: I wouldn't have said that go killed people who were
16:05
Speaker 9: engaged in segregation against you.
16:07
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm much more doctor Kig than Malcolm X.
16:09
Speaker 8: I mean, are you much more slave rebellions were justified
16:12
Speaker 8: against people that were raping, hanging, murdering Africans who had
16:16
Speaker 8: been kidnapped. I mean, I'm sorry. I spend most of
16:19
Speaker 8: my day and night talking with Palestinians, working with Palestinians.
16:22
Speaker 8: My colleague Hoss Shabatra.
16:27
Speaker 9: I'm met most of the Palacidias. I'm met, and maybe
16:30
Speaker 9: a tew days if are not talking about the kind
16:32
Speaker 9: of armed resistance that you are. They just want to
16:35
Speaker 9: live their lives and dignity and peace and not have
16:38
Speaker 9: the Israeli settlers oppressed them.
16:41
Speaker 8: But you're a member of the United States Congress who
16:43
Speaker 8: is justifying Albeit you've been very critical of Israel's war
16:47
Speaker 8: against Gaza. But you seem to be drawing a line
16:50
Speaker 8: that says that there are some cases in which Israel
16:52
Speaker 8: is justified to attack Palestinians, but only those responsible for
16:56
Speaker 8: October seventh. But you can't find a shred of justification
16:59
Speaker 8: for any Palestinian to attack the very armed forces operating
17:04
Speaker 8: under a nation state flag that is backed by the
17:07
Speaker 8: United States. And you're saying that there is no condition
17:10
Speaker 8: under which a Palestinian has a right to kill soldiers
17:14
Speaker 8: who are posted at military bases, enforcing by murder and
17:19
Speaker 8: forced starvation and deprivation an illegal occupation of Gaza. That's
17:23
Speaker 8: what doesn't make sense to me. I don't see how
17:25
Speaker 8: you reconcile those two positions, So I.
17:27
Speaker 6: Highly recommend actually watching the entire back and forth, which
17:30
Speaker 6: you can find over on the page there. But essentially,
17:33
Speaker 6: there are two different conversations going on here, and one
17:37
Speaker 6: of them I think comes or sort of spells out
17:40
Speaker 6: why it is that there's been so much resistance to
17:44
Speaker 6: identifying what's happening in Gaza as a genocide. Now, some
17:48
Speaker 6: of it is, of course the psychological element of the
17:51
Speaker 6: historical connotations that it has, but I think that is
17:54
Speaker 6: a kind of much over indexed part of it. In fact,
17:58
Speaker 6: I think what's really driving it is that once you
18:01
Speaker 6: acknowledge that what's happening is in fact a genocide and
18:06
Speaker 6: ongoing genocide, which is which is somewhat abated in its
18:10
Speaker 6: violence but not has not abated in as strategic direction,
18:16
Speaker 6: you are then pushed into policy positions that, as an
18:21
Speaker 6: American politician, you wouldn't necessarily want to take. And two
18:24
Speaker 6: of those are resistance to genocide obviously is legitimate, and
18:31
Speaker 6: any support for an entity carrying out a genocide is
18:35
Speaker 6: obviously beyond the pale.
18:37
Speaker 7: And the.
18:39
Speaker 6: Only kind of legitimate responses to that would be actual
18:44
Speaker 6: kind of international military intervention or sanctions. And that I
18:47
Speaker 6: think is at the heart of why there's so much
18:51
Speaker 6: hesitation among so many who recognize that legally what we're
18:56
Speaker 6: talking about is a genocide, that they don't want to
18:58
Speaker 6: go all the way and say it because it pushes
19:01
Speaker 6: you into a logical.
19:05
Speaker 7: Space where where you have to go to a place
19:08
Speaker 7: where an American politician doesn't want to go.
19:10
Speaker 6: And I thought it Jeremy did a great job kind
19:12
Speaker 6: of pinning down the essence of the question here, and
19:16
Speaker 6: why is it okay? You know, for one side to
19:20
Speaker 6: carry out what is it, what is you know, a
19:23
Speaker 6: con and others acknowledges a genocide, But it is not
19:25
Speaker 6: okay for the other side to fight back.
19:29
Speaker 7: And if we believe that.
19:31
Speaker 6: One side is carrying out a genocide, how is it
19:34
Speaker 6: okay to give any aid and support or allow or
19:38
Speaker 6: even to allow other.
19:39
Speaker 7: Countries to offer aid and support to that nation.
19:42
Speaker 6: So I thought that was a very helpful conversation. And
19:47
Speaker 6: you know, credit you know, to Rocana for you know,
19:50
Speaker 6: showing up for those types of debates. There are very
19:52
Speaker 6: few members of Congress who are who are willing to
19:55
Speaker 6: be pushed on issues like this, as I believe he
19:58
Speaker 6: was here Monday. This is this after of course, you know,
20:02
Speaker 6: gun toting paramilitary settlers held up his you know, held
20:08
Speaker 6: up his delegation in the West Bank, at which point
20:12
Speaker 6: the IDF came out and cided for a long time
20:16
Speaker 6: kind of with those with those settlers and not letting
20:19
Speaker 6: them pass, and then subsequently lied and said, oh, this
20:22
Speaker 6: is some closed military zone. It wouldn't have happened to
20:24
Speaker 6: you if you would have coordinated, which by itself, think
20:26
Speaker 6: about that, like in order for you not to get
20:30
Speaker 6: held up at gunpoint by illegal militias in the in
20:34
Speaker 6: the West Bank, you have to coordinate all of your
20:36
Speaker 6: travel with the US embassy. Obviously that's not a not
20:41
Speaker 6: as sustainable practice as there are millions of people you know,
20:46
Speaker 6: who live there and who are not members of Congress.
20:50
Speaker 7: And so this, this, this has.
20:52
Speaker 6: Led to a lot of pressure on on Democrats to
20:56
Speaker 6: follow through on their logical commands and commitments. One of
21:00
Speaker 6: those is Alexandrio Kazi Cortez. Julian Andreoni, my colleague over
21:03
Speaker 6: at drop Site News, caught up with her outside the
21:06
Speaker 6: Capitol and push her on this question of what about Okay,
21:10
Speaker 6: you've said you don't want to subsidize American sales and
21:14
Speaker 6: you wouldn't support the transfer of some weapons to Israel.
21:20
Speaker 6: What about a broad embargo which the definition of which
21:25
Speaker 6: is somewhat malleable, but can include we won't allow anybody
21:30
Speaker 6: to trade weapons with TOW or to send weapons to Israel.
21:34
Speaker 6: So let's listen to this exchange between Julian and AOC.
21:39
Speaker 11: Congress Would you support an arms embargo? I know that
21:42
Speaker 11: you support stopping sending offensive and defensive military aid to Israel.
21:47
Speaker 7: Would you support an embargo?
21:50
Speaker 10: What do you I mean?
21:51
Speaker 12: I consider both of those things to be.
21:53
Speaker 11: The side stopping the sale of arms to Israel, stopping
21:56
Speaker 11: other countries I'm selling to them.
21:58
Speaker 12: I don't well other actually other countries I don't know
22:02
Speaker 12: where we have jurisdiction over. But I think in terms
22:05
Speaker 12: of US, I do not support any transfer of weapon
22:09
Speaker 12: sale or or you know, I think, well, here's one
22:13
Speaker 12: thing that I will say, like the actual ways that
22:15
Speaker 12: these things work is that is that they have to go.
22:20
Speaker 12: So anything that I have a vote for, here's what
22:23
Speaker 12: I'll say. Anything I have a vote for, I will
22:26
Speaker 12: not I would not authorize that transfer. And I haven't
22:29
Speaker 12: you know, I never have. I've never voted, to my knowledge,
22:34
Speaker 12: I don't believe I've ever voted for spops. I don't.
22:36
Speaker 12: I've never voted for the military n daa budget. So
22:42
Speaker 12: in terms of my vote and what I have control over,
22:44
Speaker 12: I always vote no on weapons transfer.
22:46
Speaker 11: Would you consider taking a trip like the one that
22:48
Speaker 11: Congressman Kana took to the West Bank?
22:50
Speaker 7: Oh of course, of course.
22:51
Speaker 12: You know, I think many years ago, and yeah, who
22:58
Speaker 12: prevented congresswomen leab in Omar from entering? And so I
23:03
Speaker 12: had stated years ago that as long as they were
23:07
Speaker 12: opposing entry to them, but I certainly would be open
23:12
Speaker 12: to visiting and and would be happy to. You know,
23:15
Speaker 12: I don't I've never taken an a pack funded trip,
23:19
Speaker 12: and I don't take a I mean, I don't know
23:23
Speaker 12: about that, but you know, I've never taken like those
23:27
Speaker 12: kinds of funded trips. But which is probably another reason
23:33
Speaker 12: why I haven't gone. But in terms of visiting, i'd
23:35
Speaker 12: be more than I would be more than happy to.
23:37
Speaker 11: You think there needs to be action taken after they
23:39
Speaker 11: detained them, especially the idea of playing a role in
23:40
Speaker 11: taking the side of the satellites. You think there should
23:42
Speaker 11: be sanctions anything like that.
23:43
Speaker 12: I think there should be sanctions, and then beyond you know,
23:48
Speaker 12: of course what happened to Congressman Khana is unacceptable, and
23:53
Speaker 12: also we need answers on the murders of many US
23:58
Speaker 12: citizens the hands of settlers in the Israeli government. You know,
24:04
Speaker 12: we still do not have accountability on US journalists and
24:09
Speaker 12: other people, and so I think absolutely absolutely we need to.
24:13
Speaker 12: We needed to have been instituting these sanctions in a
24:15
Speaker 12: much harsher way for a very long time.
24:18
Speaker 6: So there was a very interesting moment there in that
24:20
Speaker 6: exchange where Julian asks if she'd be willing to take
24:24
Speaker 6: a similar Palestinian led trip to the West Bank, like
24:27
Speaker 6: similar to the one that Brokanna just took. She brought
24:30
Speaker 6: up how the Israelis had blocked Rashida Talib and Nilhanomar
24:35
Speaker 6: from traveling there. I believe it was in twenty nineteen,
24:37
Speaker 6: and at the time she had said, as long as
24:39
Speaker 6: they were blocked from going that in solidarity, she would
24:42
Speaker 6: also refuse to go. But she's now saying, as you
24:48
Speaker 6: saw there, that she would be willing to go on
24:51
Speaker 6: a Palsingian led trip to the West Bank, which I
24:54
Speaker 6: expect now that she has made that bludge, we're going
24:57
Speaker 6: to see that and as more members of Congress take
25:00
Speaker 6: that trip and see for themselves kind of what the
25:02
Speaker 6: apartheid light conditions are on the ground, I think you're
25:05
Speaker 6: going to continue to see the American policy among Democrats,
25:11
Speaker 6: you know, slide further and further in a more skeptical
25:14
Speaker 6: and hostile direction when it comes to supporting Israel. And
25:18
Speaker 6: I think one test of that is going to be
25:20
Speaker 6: today in the House of Representatives. Thomas Massey, who's who
25:24
Speaker 6: was ousted by Apak in a primary, is still you know,
25:28
Speaker 6: is still serving out the rest of his term and
25:30
Speaker 6: has put forward an amendment which would it is a
25:34
Speaker 6: very blunt amendment that will get a vote on the
25:36
Speaker 6: House floor, which would block all aid to Israel military
25:41
Speaker 6: and otherwise. And so yesterday you had Hakeem Jefferys, a
25:45
Speaker 6: Democratic leader, come out and say that he opposes it
25:48
Speaker 6: because he said it's too blunt and it would affect
25:50
Speaker 6: you know, transfers, you know, to you know, humanitarian aid
25:53
Speaker 6: to Palestinians and such like. And either way, it's it's
25:58
Speaker 6: not going through the Senate, so it's really just a
26:01
Speaker 6: kind of symbolic vote to see where members of Congress are.
26:04
Speaker 6: But importantly, Jeffrey said that he was voting against it,
26:08
Speaker 6: but he understood if other Democrats.
26:11
Speaker 7: Voted for it.
26:12
Speaker 6: That's what they call a vote of conscience on Capitol Hill,
26:16
Speaker 6: where you're not required to vote party line, I mean,
26:20
Speaker 6: obviously not required. You report only to your constituents. But
26:24
Speaker 6: if you break with the party on a vote where
26:26
Speaker 6: they're whipping, it's going to then come with consequences from
26:30
Speaker 6: the party leadership. And what Jeffreys is saying here is
26:32
Speaker 6: that there would be no consequences for members who either
26:35
Speaker 6: vote present, vote or vote yes, although he said he
26:38
Speaker 6: personally is going to be voting no. J Street, the
26:41
Speaker 6: Liberal Zionist Organization, put out a statement saying the same thing,
26:45
Speaker 6: that they oppose the amendment, but they also understand that
26:48
Speaker 6: this is an unusual opportunity for members of Congress to
26:52
Speaker 6: go on record against military aid to Israel, and so
26:55
Speaker 6: they will they will support members who vote yes on it,
27:00
Speaker 6: and that that support ends up being helpful in uh
27:03
Speaker 6: in you know, can be helpful in in primary campaigns.
27:07
Speaker 7: Now.
27:08
Speaker 6: At the same time, if if a if a Democratic
27:12
Speaker 6: member of Congress votes know on this or votes present,
27:16
Speaker 6: what they're doing is they're they're putting themselves on a
27:19
Speaker 6: list of people who are going to be researched, to
27:21
Speaker 6: be primaried by populist progressive organizations like Justice Democrats, DSA
27:27
Speaker 6: and others who are trying to figure out who are
27:29
Speaker 6: the ones who are with us, who are the ones
27:31
Speaker 6: are against us, who are the ones that are that
27:33
Speaker 6: are vulnerable? And so I think it, you know, there's
27:35
Speaker 6: some there's some reporting that you could see a huge
27:39
Speaker 6: number of Democrats kind of swing and end up supporting
27:42
Speaker 6: this this massive amendment.
27:44
Speaker 7: Meanwhile, we can put.
27:45
Speaker 6: Up e three the the the nda A, which includes
27:50
Speaker 6: the provision which would fuse elements of the Israeli and
27:55
Speaker 6: American militaries, was blocked in the United States Senate by Democrats.
28:01
Speaker 6: Now it was, you know, some Democrats in the Senate
28:05
Speaker 6: spoke out about the provision that merged the Israelian American
28:10
Speaker 6: militaries overall. What they were objecting to here was the
28:17
Speaker 6: restarting of the Iran war, which by the way, is
28:20
Speaker 6: completely illegal, Like the Congress has passed a war Powers
28:24
Speaker 6: resolution that says the President cannot engage in war with Iran.
28:29
Speaker 6: He's just doing it illegally anyway. And so we'll be
28:33
Speaker 6: tracking the debate on the and the vote on the
28:35
Speaker 6: House floor, and I'm sure Crystalin Sager will be covering
28:38
Speaker 6: that yesterday tomorrow when they're here.
28:42
Speaker 7: Up next, we've.
28:43
Speaker 6: Got congressional candidate Donovan McKinney running in Detroit. So in
28:50
Speaker 6: twenty eighteen, a man named Shri Thanadar, who had made
28:53
Speaker 6: his fortune in some quite curious ways, which we'll talk
28:56
Speaker 6: about in a moment, met with a group of Republican
29:01
Speaker 6: consultants telling them that he wanted to run for governor.
29:05
Speaker 6: And he had a very unusual question for them, what
29:09
Speaker 6: party should I run in? The consultants and we wrote
29:13
Speaker 6: about this at the intercept back of the time.
29:15
Speaker 7: The consultants set back.
29:16
Speaker 6: To him, well what party are you in? And he said, well,
29:20
Speaker 6: isn't that you guys are the consultants, like you tell me.
29:25
Speaker 6: They're very confused, like, well, what do you believe? And
29:27
Speaker 6: he's like, what do you mean? What do I believe?
29:29
Speaker 6: Like you're the political consultants. You tell me what I believe,
29:33
Speaker 6: and then I run for governor. They eventually told him, look,
29:37
Speaker 6: we've never heard of anything like this from a political
29:41
Speaker 6: candidate before.
29:42
Speaker 7: I don't think this is a good fit for you
29:44
Speaker 7: and us.
29:44
Speaker 6: Eventually he decided that he was a Democrat and he
29:47
Speaker 6: was going to run for governor as a Democrat. He
29:50
Speaker 6: was leading in the polls for some time until that
29:54
Speaker 6: story emerged. Plus a story about some legal abuse, which
29:57
Speaker 6: we'll get into in a moment also came out. So
30:00
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty two he spent his considerable fortune instead
30:04
Speaker 6: running for Congress. He was challenged at the time by
30:09
Speaker 6: Apak who saw this street Thanadark coming onto the scene
30:13
Speaker 6: and they were concerned that maybe this guy is anti Israel.
30:16
Speaker 6: We don't really know. So they spent millions of dollars
30:19
Speaker 6: against him. He spent millions of his own money and
30:22
Speaker 6: he won. He afterwards, he became one of apax's biggest
30:27
Speaker 6: allies in Congress. Now he's being challenged by State Representative
30:33
Speaker 6: Donovan McKinney, who has the backing of DSA as well
30:36
Speaker 6: as Justice Democrats, and so State Representative McKinney, thank you
30:43
Speaker 6: for joining us. I want to run through a bunch
30:45
Speaker 6: of this today. This is it's one of the strangest
30:48
Speaker 6: political journeys I think I've ever seen. That's just the
30:52
Speaker 6: tip of the iceberg. What did I miss about Congressman
30:55
Speaker 6: Thanadar here?
30:57
Speaker 13: No, Eric, I just appreciate you and inviting us on
31:01
Speaker 13: your show. I'm a big fan of breaking points. But
31:06
Speaker 13: like what Shari, it's he's a conundrum of all sorts.
31:12
Speaker 13: He's voted to think ice last year, he's increased the
31:16
Speaker 13: Department of Ice budget multiple times, sitting on that committee
31:20
Speaker 13: as as a sitting legislator, as well as he tried
31:25
Speaker 13: to introduce legislation to abolished ice.
31:27
Speaker 10: Just a few months later.
31:29
Speaker 13: Because we're gaining steam in our campaign, and so he's
31:32
Speaker 13: trying to do some things that are politically feasible. He's
31:36
Speaker 13: taking money from you know, ice contractors to you know,
31:40
Speaker 13: our utility companies, monopoly utility dte to a pac crypto.
31:48
Speaker 13: Funny story about him, Eric, he's the first congressional member
31:51
Speaker 13: in the history of Congress to invest campaign money into
31:54
Speaker 13: crypto currency. And so you know, he's he's representing one
31:59
Speaker 13: of the poor where's districts in the country, and we
32:02
Speaker 13: need somebody that is going to put the people at
32:05
Speaker 13: the district top of mind. And that's why we decided
32:07
Speaker 13: to run and take a shot at it, so we
32:09
Speaker 13: can bring some real representation back to Michigan's thirteenth district.
32:13
Speaker 6: Yeah, his connection to the Beagle testing lab was one
32:16
Speaker 6: of the you know, among all the crazy things about
32:19
Speaker 6: the guys, one of the craziest. Let's let's I want
32:21
Speaker 6: to play F one is this is one of the
32:22
Speaker 6: things you've been using to to go after and do
32:27
Speaker 6: F one.
32:28
Speaker 10: Please, I'm Donovan McKinney, and I prove this message.
32:32
Speaker 8: We have new information now a Shree Tanadar.
32:34
Speaker 10: He's a Democrat playing to be Michigan's next turn.
32:36
Speaker 5: I'm like shreada tested drugs on dogs and less.
32:39
Speaker 10: Than to die.
32:40
Speaker 4: Look, I love animals.
32:41
Speaker 8: The allegations involved mistreatment of dogs and monkeys used for testing.
32:45
Speaker 7: The dog for found abandoned without food and water.
32:48
Speaker 4: Employees had to break into the building to save them.
32:51
Speaker 5: Billionaire farmer executive streets Hanadaar.
32:53
Speaker 14: That's one hundred peoples to die, Shriet Handar, one sick puppy.
32:58
Speaker 6: So this was something that did come up in the
33:00
Speaker 6: twenty eighteen campaign. So tell us what happened with his
33:03
Speaker 6: abandoned beagles.
33:04
Speaker 10: So he owned a pharmaceutical company.
33:08
Speaker 13: He sold half of it, and so it's actually he
33:14
Speaker 13: made probably like double the money back because it actually
33:18
Speaker 13: increased in value, like doubled in value. So he made
33:23
Speaker 13: the money back and then something but the pharmaceutical company
33:26
Speaker 13: tested drugs on dogs and animals, and pretty much when
33:31
Speaker 13: he sold half of it and closed up shop at
33:35
Speaker 13: a lot of facilities, he just left all these animals abandoned,
33:38
Speaker 13: over one hundred beagles, some monkeys. Just terrible all around
33:42
Speaker 13: human being for doing that. And so you know, think
33:46
Speaker 13: about this. If he's want to abandon those dogs, just
33:51
Speaker 13: imagine what he's doing in the Sea of Congress.
33:53
Speaker 10: He's abandoning the people of the thirteenth District here in Michigan.
33:57
Speaker 6: Yeah, and it was one of kind of one of
33:58
Speaker 6: those pump and dump schemes where you kind of take
34:01
Speaker 6: the company, you drive up the fake value of it,
34:06
Speaker 6: you take your piece of it, and then you bankrupt
34:08
Speaker 6: the thing. And then yeah, when he bankrupts it, just
34:11
Speaker 6: walk away and whatever it's doing, yeah, exactly, just keeps unfolding.
34:16
Speaker 6: I want people to get a sense of him himself.
34:19
Speaker 6: Let's roll F two. This is when he became allies
34:22
Speaker 6: with APAX, deeply thanking them for the help.
34:26
Speaker 10: Hi.
34:26
Speaker 15: This is Congressman Shri Canadar, proudly representing Detroit and the
34:31
Speaker 15: Michigan's thirteenth District. Here. I am a whole week in
34:36
Speaker 15: Israel learning about this little country that is surrounded by
34:41
Speaker 15: terrorism and how it's important that United States and Israel
34:45
Speaker 15: must have a strong relationship, but more importantly also that
34:49
Speaker 15: I as an entrepreneur. I met many young innovators, entrepreneurs,
34:58
Speaker 15: and I'm talking to them about collaborating with city of
35:02
Speaker 15: Detroit and working with the rich culture of Detroit and
35:07
Speaker 15: the innovation and entrepreneurship in Israel to make better things
35:12
Speaker 15: for both countries and the people of my district and
35:16
Speaker 15: the people of Israel.
35:18
Speaker 6: My sense is that Shre was hoping that the enough
35:21
Speaker 6: APEX support, plus his own money, plus than a divided
35:25
Speaker 6: field of opponents would be enough for him to be
35:29
Speaker 6: able to continue to get re elected in Detroit. How
35:32
Speaker 6: did you your political operation and the community more broadly
35:37
Speaker 6: avoid that trap of having, you know, if you have
35:39
Speaker 6: three or four credible, good candidates who are all better
35:44
Speaker 6: than the incumbent than it are, voters are like, well,
35:46
Speaker 6: what do I do?
35:47
Speaker 7: Like who do I pick to beat him?
35:49
Speaker 6: But now it's pretty much a one on one race, Like,
35:51
Speaker 6: how did you get to that place?
35:54
Speaker 13: So we started off, so how he ended up being
35:57
Speaker 13: congress in the first place?
35:59
Speaker 10: He one and a nine way primate, right exactly.
36:02
Speaker 13: And this is one of the only, if not the only,
36:05
Speaker 13: majority black congressional district in the current country not represented
36:09
Speaker 13: by a black person, And so you know, it was
36:12
Speaker 13: nine black or eight black people in the race plus him.
36:15
Speaker 13: So the vote got really split and he won with
36:18
Speaker 13: I believe twenty eight percent of vote something like that,
36:21
Speaker 13: with like just a couple of thousand votes, and so
36:23
Speaker 13: a couple percentage points. And the second time around, in
36:27
Speaker 13: the twenty four election, there was a you know, a
36:30
Speaker 13: couple of women, Black women on the on the ballot,
36:33
Speaker 13: but they didn't have the money and some of them
36:36
Speaker 13: had you know a lot of baggage that he exploited
36:40
Speaker 13: with a pac money in his own money because he's
36:43
Speaker 13: also a self funder, he's a multi millionaire. That left
36:48
Speaker 13: a lot of you know, bad tastes in a lot
36:50
Speaker 13: of people's mouths. This time around, a bunch of folks
36:54
Speaker 13: tried to do it. We had conversations initially, and people
36:59
Speaker 13: either decided to drop out to support our candidacy or
37:04
Speaker 13: got kicked off the ballot. Because it's crazy because the incumbent, Shari,
37:10
Speaker 13: he's the one who challenged a lot of people's signatures and.
37:13
Speaker 10: Got it kicked off.
37:15
Speaker 13: So it's like a cash twenty two in a sense
37:18
Speaker 13: because he literally dugged his own grave. And because of that,
37:23
Speaker 13: we have a great opportunity of winning the seat, and
37:26
Speaker 13: we're building the eric. We're building the biggest and baddest
37:29
Speaker 13: coalition in the country. We have over one hundred and
37:31
Speaker 13: fifty plus endorsements from congressional members on the federal, state, local, county,
37:39
Speaker 13: and local levels, to faith leaders, to all the unions
37:42
Speaker 13: Metro the Michigan NFL CIO. I come out the SCIU movement.
37:47
Speaker 13: I'm a label organizer. I got uaw you name it
37:50
Speaker 13: to all the progressive organizations on the ground, faith leaders.
37:53
Speaker 13: We are building a big unit and a big coalition
37:58
Speaker 13: to take him out, to take him in as much
38:00
Speaker 13: because organized people can be organized money every time, and
38:05
Speaker 13: that's what we're looking to do in less than three
38:07
Speaker 13: weeks away from the election day August fourth.
38:10
Speaker 6: Tell us a little bit about yourself. I know you
38:11
Speaker 6: grew up poor, and was it northern Detroit? Like what
38:15
Speaker 6: was your Detroit?
38:16
Speaker 7: Yeah?
38:16
Speaker 6: So what was your upbringing like? And like how did
38:18
Speaker 6: you become political? Like do you remember a moment where
38:22
Speaker 6: you realized that you're that you recognize the power of
38:26
Speaker 6: kind of organizing and people power to do something about
38:29
Speaker 6: the conditions facing your community.
38:32
Speaker 7: Was that a gradual thing? Like yeah, yeah, what brought
38:35
Speaker 7: you here?
38:36
Speaker 9: Yeah?
38:36
Speaker 13: No, good question. And I grew up with my my mom,
38:39
Speaker 13: my brother, and my grandmother. Removed around over thirteen times
38:43
Speaker 13: across the city of Detroit. Spent the vast majority of
38:46
Speaker 13: my life in Northeast Detroit, but there was times we
38:49
Speaker 13: lived in cars, shelters, sometimes on the Street. There were
38:53
Speaker 13: days where we didn't know where our next meal was
38:55
Speaker 13: going to come from. But I remember with the principles
38:58
Speaker 13: my grandm my grandmother raised me on, and one of
39:01
Speaker 13: them is, no matter what happens in your life, there
39:04
Speaker 13: will always be people worse off than you. There will
39:07
Speaker 13: always be people better off than you. But to never
39:10
Speaker 13: fight the erth to give, never fight the erth to give, Eric,
39:13
Speaker 13: And I put that, I put her quote on my
39:16
Speaker 13: first piece of literature when I ever ran for state House.
39:19
Speaker 13: And I still live by that principle today and it
39:22
Speaker 13: led me to a life of public service, to helping people,
39:25
Speaker 13: understanding that we're no better than anyone else and vice versa.
39:30
Speaker 13: But we all have to utilize our God given talents
39:32
Speaker 13: and abilities to serve people. And at the end of
39:34
Speaker 13: the day, so many folks are struggling. They need folks
39:38
Speaker 13: to be their most authentic sales. But they need people
39:41
Speaker 13: who are going to rise to the occasion and meet
39:43
Speaker 13: the urgency of this moment. I got seniors on fixed income,
39:47
Speaker 13: Eric that literally make you received nine hundred dollars a
39:50
Speaker 13: month from Social Security every month. Literally, their their rent
39:55
Speaker 13: is eight hundred dollars right their food assistance from the
39:58
Speaker 13: federal government just got cut down to less than thirty
40:01
Speaker 13: dollars a month, and they're out of pocket.
40:03
Speaker 10: Costs to do.
40:05
Speaker 13: Doctor visits and for prescription drugs at skyrocketing, and so
40:09
Speaker 13: every few weeks they have to make a conscious decision
40:12
Speaker 13: either I'm going to have food at the table, I'm
40:15
Speaker 13: going to be able to eat, I'm going to be
40:16
Speaker 13: able to pay my rent, or I'm going to have
40:18
Speaker 13: to figure out ways to have some dollars for my
40:21
Speaker 13: life saving medicine. These are the conditions of our district,
40:25
Speaker 13: and people are going through folks who are working two
40:27
Speaker 13: to three jobs, not even making.
40:29
Speaker 10: Ends meet anymore. Air And so for me, this is
40:32
Speaker 10: deeper in politics.
40:33
Speaker 13: This is about adhering to the moment and the needs
40:36
Speaker 13: of the people in the district, not sending money to
40:40
Speaker 13: you know, for bombs and weapons to kill families and
40:42
Speaker 13: children overseas, and not for any type of foreign influence
40:46
Speaker 13: or special interest for running a grassrooms campaign, now taking
40:50
Speaker 13: any corporate pack money, APAC money at all.
40:53
Speaker 10: We raised over a million dollars so far. Eric.
40:55
Speaker 13: The average donation in our campaign is thirty dollars, And
40:58
Speaker 13: so when people are looking at this nationwide movement and
41:02
Speaker 13: when people are looking for leaders to step up to
41:05
Speaker 13: not only meet the moment, but to be present and
41:07
Speaker 13: fight for them and what they're care about. That's why
41:11
Speaker 13: we're running, and that's why a lot of people are
41:13
Speaker 13: grabbing tours our campaign, and that's how we're going to win.
41:16
Speaker 10: On Tuesday, August.
41:17
Speaker 7: For you were endorsed by Bernie Sanders.
41:20
Speaker 6: Early on, you were endorsed by Justice Democrats, and last
41:23
Speaker 6: month to kind of metro Detroit, DSA and endorsed your campaign.
41:27
Speaker 6: And I know that when it happened, there was there
41:29
Speaker 6: was an argument internally, They're like, well, he's not been
41:31
Speaker 6: a long time kind of DSA member, but he he
41:37
Speaker 6: supports everything that we believe in. So you know, the
41:39
Speaker 6: argument carried the day to say like let's let's get
41:42
Speaker 6: behind him. There's also been this national pushback from the
41:46
Speaker 6: right about DSA saying that it's a bunch of white gentrifiers,
41:50
Speaker 6: which is kind of ironic to hear Republicans complaining that
41:53
Speaker 6: something's white. But anyway, well we'll let them have their
41:56
Speaker 6: fun over there. But so I'm curious when it comes
42:00
Speaker 6: to DSA. I think DSA desperately wants to have more
42:04
Speaker 6: people who grew up poor in Northeast Detroit organizing behind
42:09
Speaker 6: Democratic socialis And so what what's your.
42:11
Speaker 7: Relationship been like with them, and what advice do.
42:14
Speaker 6: You have two DSA chapters both in Detroit and also
42:18
Speaker 6: you know around the country, about how they can be
42:21
Speaker 6: more resonant in neighborhoods like the ones that you grew
42:25
Speaker 6: up in and kind of push back against some of
42:28
Speaker 6: that that criticism that they get from being kind of
42:30
Speaker 6: white outsiders coming in to put like a fancy democratic
42:35
Speaker 6: socialism label on their politics, on their gentrifying politics.
42:39
Speaker 13: Now, I would say, listen, this is not about labels
42:42
Speaker 13: in particular. This is about the issues that are impacting
42:45
Speaker 13: the everyday life and the quality of life of our
42:47
Speaker 13: residents and community members. And I preach about all the time,
42:51
Speaker 13: but we have to if the Democratic Party wants to
42:55
Speaker 13: continue to act like or at least claim that are
42:58
Speaker 13: party of the people, then we need to act like it.
43:01
Speaker 13: And we need to ensure that we deliver on the
43:03
Speaker 13: resources as much as possible. How define politics is to
43:09
Speaker 13: redistribution and resources? Eric, And so, if you're in these
43:12
Speaker 13: powerful positions of influence and you're at the table deciding
43:16
Speaker 13: these things, you need to bring back home resources when
43:19
Speaker 13: people are struggling to make ends meet. And so you know,
43:22
Speaker 13: to dsay, it's all democratic socialists talk about the issues, right,
43:27
Speaker 13: the fact that people have to decide if they're going
43:31
Speaker 13: to get health care on their premiums or skyrocketing more
43:34
Speaker 13: I proming these corporations get to decide who gets health
43:37
Speaker 13: care or not, who gets delivered or not based off
43:39
Speaker 13: if they have a preeze it's a condition or not.
43:41
Speaker 10: Right, we have so many We live in a wealthiest
43:44
Speaker 10: country in the.
43:44
Speaker 13: World, but we got so many people who are unhoused
43:47
Speaker 13: right now, even our veterans.
43:50
Speaker 10: Is that right? No, making sure that we have opportunities
43:55
Speaker 10: for our kids to.
43:56
Speaker 13: Grow up in higher education, free college, a boss ice,
44:01
Speaker 13: stop sending money overseas for genocide like these are the
44:04
Speaker 13: simple issues that people care about living in the world
44:08
Speaker 13: where our kids can be able to breathe clean air
44:10
Speaker 13: and drink clean water. That's something in my district that
44:14
Speaker 13: is near and dear to every resident of mine. So
44:16
Speaker 13: you know, this is not necessarily about you know, who's
44:19
Speaker 13: more socialist than whoever. But these socialist ideas, these are
44:23
Speaker 13: common sense ideas, Eric, and it makes sense when you
44:27
Speaker 13: break it down to people and you talk to them
44:29
Speaker 13: and you realize, damn, we all care about the same things.
44:32
Speaker 13: For the most part, eighty percent of us pretty much
44:35
Speaker 13: want the same thing. We might differ on how the
44:38
Speaker 13: execution of it and how to get there and achieve it,
44:41
Speaker 13: but in reality, most folks want to be able to
44:43
Speaker 13: work one job, to not only make his meat, to
44:47
Speaker 13: have some disposable income, maybe take your family trip once
44:50
Speaker 13: in a while, benefits to take care of their family,
44:53
Speaker 13: and of retiing to look forward to. That's what probably
44:56
Speaker 13: the most. That's the American dream. But right now that
45:00
Speaker 13: is being wasted. There's no longer that that thing that
45:04
Speaker 13: people can capture and hold on to, and so we
45:07
Speaker 13: got to fight, like hell fort and I'm a proud
45:09
Speaker 13: DSA member, but also I need Dessa to stop over
45:12
Speaker 13: talking people and really talk to the issues at heart
45:15
Speaker 13: and what people care about day in and day out.
45:17
Speaker 6: Also wanted to get your take on the Michigan Senate race.
45:20
Speaker 6: You've endorsed abdual outside in that race may be decided
45:25
Speaker 6: in Detroit, and there's there's been some controversy in the
45:28
Speaker 6: state lately because Haley Stevens with some with support from
45:33
Speaker 6: her outside tuber PACs has been very strongly suggesting that
45:36
Speaker 6: Barack Obama is actually supporting her campaign, which is not
45:40
Speaker 6: which is not true.
45:42
Speaker 7: Wonderful running.
45:43
Speaker 10: They're running ads like crazy.
45:45
Speaker 13: I just right before I hopped on, I saw four
45:48
Speaker 13: ads from I think, I think Apex Funnel Group about
45:53
Speaker 13: how Haley is, you know, getting the support of Obama's.
45:57
Speaker 7: Crazy Let me show.
45:57
Speaker 6: Let me show one of those ads, because yes, I
45:59
Speaker 6: think they're over fifty million dollars at this point, and
46:02
Speaker 6: we're not August fourth, so we've got ways to go.
46:05
Speaker 6: They might spend sixty seventy million dollars in one state
46:08
Speaker 6: by the end of this. Let's let's roll f three.
46:11
Speaker 5: My husband worked at Ford for forty one years.
46:14
Speaker 14: My father worked for General Motors for thirty years.
46:16
Speaker 8: And when they came for our auto.
46:18
Speaker 7: Jobs, Ailey Stephens stood up.
46:20
Speaker 2: She was chief of status to President Obama's Auto Rescue.
46:23
Speaker 13: And Hailey Stephens, by the way, she was a critical
46:26
Speaker 13: part of my team that helped.
46:27
Speaker 10: The American auto industry come rolling ball.
46:30
Speaker 8: That's say, two hundred thousand Michigan jobs.
46:33
Speaker 10: She helps, say jobs for my own family.
46:35
Speaker 5: If President Obama trust her.
46:37
Speaker 7: So do I. The stronger Michigan is responsible for the
46:39
Speaker 7: content of this ad, So sorry to make you watch
46:42
Speaker 7: that again.
46:42
Speaker 6: You've probably seen it a thousand times at this point,
46:46
Speaker 6: so strongly suggesting that she's got the auto worker support too.
46:49
Speaker 6: By the way, at the beginning of that UAW has
46:52
Speaker 6: in fact endorsed abdul Alsie.
46:53
Speaker 7: Obama has not endorsed at all.
46:56
Speaker 10: But it.
46:58
Speaker 6: Seems like this these as are breaking through and that
47:01
Speaker 6: the public is starting to believe that Obama does support Stevens.
47:05
Speaker 6: A new pole has her up seven now against El
47:08
Speaker 6: Saiad And I think it was a Detroit News sponsored poll.
47:11
Speaker 7: What on the ground, like is that accurate?
47:13
Speaker 6: Like are you meeting people who are like, yeah, I'm
47:15
Speaker 6: with Stevens because Obama's behind him.
47:20
Speaker 13: I've met a few folks on the doors at at
47:22
Speaker 13: different events who you know, have heard this propaganda and
47:26
Speaker 13: have started to believe it. But I will say, Abdullah
47:30
Speaker 13: has a great ground game, and I think and close
47:33
Speaker 13: that gap. People kind of see through that proper game
47:39
Speaker 13: and so to speak. But like we have to that listen,
47:42
Speaker 13: we're going to get out spent, We're going to we're
47:44
Speaker 13: going to like they're going to run more more ads.
47:47
Speaker 13: They're going to try to run more attacks against Abdul
47:50
Speaker 13: as well as myself because we are the progressive candidates,
47:54
Speaker 13: the working family candidates, you know, u aw indoors, Bernie
47:58
Speaker 13: in doors, I mean, you name it. And so we
48:01
Speaker 13: have to come back that through people power. And so
48:04
Speaker 13: we're making these phone calls, we're knocking on the doors,
48:07
Speaker 13: We're showing up to advance where people don't normally show
48:09
Speaker 13: up to And that's how you try to figure out
48:12
Speaker 13: how to come back that and burst the gap and
48:14
Speaker 13: bring people together to understand our message. But it's sad
48:19
Speaker 13: that we got to spend so much money in our politics.
48:22
Speaker 13: That's why me and a duel we both support in
48:24
Speaker 13: New Citizens United getting all corporate money out of our politics.
48:28
Speaker 13: I've led it at the state level here in Michigan
48:31
Speaker 13: to taking back our Power legislation, which we couldn't get
48:34
Speaker 13: a hearing on it in Lancing. But guess what, the
48:37
Speaker 13: people on the ground and organizations on the ground decided
48:40
Speaker 13: to take our legislation, create a ballot initiative collected over
48:44
Speaker 13: six hundred thousand signatures, and we'll know in a few
48:47
Speaker 13: weeks the state boarder campus is going to approve it
48:50
Speaker 13: to put it on this year is November ballot, and Eric,
48:52
Speaker 13: if it gets on this year's November ballot, I guarantee
48:55
Speaker 13: it's going to pass with eighty percent of vote. You
48:57
Speaker 13: want to know why, because Democrats were of independence alike
49:02
Speaker 13: understand that corporate influence on our politics is just too much,
49:05
Speaker 13: and we got a level the playing field to ensure
49:07
Speaker 13: that the people's voices are heard.
49:09
Speaker 10: It can be rained true.
49:12
Speaker 6: I also wanted to get you to respond to another
49:15
Speaker 6: controversy that's going on in Michigan in a different race
49:18
Speaker 6: that's kind of fascinating in the way it's been been unfolding.
49:21
Speaker 7: And this is Will Lawrence, who's running against kind of two.
49:23
Speaker 6: Centrist candidates, has had some of his comments from a
49:29
Speaker 6: podcast with Curry Peterson Smith, who describes himself kind of
49:32
Speaker 6: as a black internationalist, twisted to say that he's like
49:37
Speaker 6: a racist guy. I want to roll the actual comments
49:41
Speaker 6: so that people can hear what he said and then
49:43
Speaker 6: get your reaction to because I think it's what he's
49:45
Speaker 6: actually probing at is an interesting conversations.
49:48
Speaker 7: So let's let's roll F four here.
49:50
Speaker 8: That is a contested space that we need to show
49:53
Speaker 8: up to.
49:55
Speaker 14: Me how do you feel what do you think is
49:57
Speaker 14: the trajectory as a millennial black leftist. It's not something
50:04
Speaker 14: I can talk too much about because I'm I'm white,
50:07
Speaker 14: and it's it's not my it's not my struggle. That
50:09
Speaker 14: being said, like the extent to which the older generation
50:14
Speaker 14: of black political leadership are such of a pillar, frankly
50:18
Speaker 14: for establishment, capitalist, imperialist American power through their role, you know,
50:30
Speaker 14: as this kind of traditionalist, establishmentist pillar of the Democratic Party,
50:36
Speaker 14: it's a big problem. It's a big problem for left
50:38
Speaker 14: politics in this country. And uh, and and it gets
50:42
Speaker 14: us every single time, and it really defangs the white left,
50:49
Speaker 14: uh puts and puts us in you know, impossible positions.
50:54
Speaker 14: Really it's very effective politically. And so I don't know,
50:59
Speaker 14: I'm curious. But we're also seeing, you know now that
51:03
Speaker 14: unfortunately I don't want anyone to vote for Trump, but
51:05
Speaker 14: like young black people are are are falling away from
51:08
Speaker 14: the Democratic Party and the support is not showing up
51:11
Speaker 14: in the same way. We'll see what happens in November.
51:13
Speaker 14: I'm curious where you think this is headed and what
51:18
Speaker 14: the the younger black left needs to do in order
51:24
Speaker 14: to change this dynamic.
51:27
Speaker 16: Yeah, totally I meant just to start again with a
51:31
Speaker 16: kind of like you know, internationalist answer of a kind
51:35
Speaker 16: is this is this is a question that it's faced
51:37
Speaker 16: in different places around the world, where like the centrist
51:41
Speaker 16: parties and the kind of you know, and some center
51:47
Speaker 16: left parties have just failed. I have failed to well
51:52
Speaker 16: I shouldn't they failed.
51:53
Speaker 6: I'm curious for your obviously there's a lot more nuanced
51:56
Speaker 6: than I got kind of portrayed in the headlines. But
51:58
Speaker 6: I'm curious when what you thought when you saw the headlines,
52:01
Speaker 6: but then also where you are on kind of Will
52:03
Speaker 6: Lawrence and the general ideas he's talking about there.
52:08
Speaker 13: I've met Will and known Will for some years now,
52:11
Speaker 13: and on the environmental justice side of things.
52:14
Speaker 10: He comes out the Sunrise Movement. I came out of
52:17
Speaker 10: s c i U.
52:17
Speaker 13: S CiU was the first union to sign onto the
52:20
Speaker 13: Green New Deal, and so you know our agenda lines
52:24
Speaker 13: around the environmental justice. When I first saw the headlines,
52:27
Speaker 13: I was I was a little taken back. I'm not
52:29
Speaker 13: going to lie, but I actually listened to it and
52:32
Speaker 13: I'm like, man, actually, he's not totally wrong there, right.
52:37
Speaker 13: Like me, as a young black man, husband and father
52:41
Speaker 13: of three young children ages four and younger. Like I
52:45
Speaker 13: think about my upbringing, and I think about and I
52:49
Speaker 13: give you three examples, Eric of what has happened that
52:52
Speaker 13: has disappointed me and not want me to even engage
52:56
Speaker 13: in the political process. But I have to because I
52:59
Speaker 13: do believe that's part of changing the landscape of not
53:03
Speaker 13: only the now, but the future. What happened in two
53:06
Speaker 13: thousand and eight recession in housing, but what did the
53:11
Speaker 13: Democratic Party do at that particular time.
53:14
Speaker 10: We ended up bailing out the banks instead of.
53:17
Speaker 13: The people that were going through the housing crisis, like
53:20
Speaker 13: Michigan in particular, the city Detroit in my district, we
53:24
Speaker 13: had the largest home ownership rate eighty two percent at
53:27
Speaker 13: the time in the early two thousands, out of any
53:29
Speaker 13: city in America.
53:31
Speaker 10: And now we're plumbing it now.
53:32
Speaker 13: We're a majority renter city right now because of the
53:36
Speaker 13: policies back then, the Democratic establishment decided to bail out
53:40
Speaker 13: the corporation instead of the people that needed those resources
53:43
Speaker 13: the most.
53:44
Speaker 10: Another thing, what happened with the George Floyd movement.
53:48
Speaker 13: And the Black Lives Matter right, the George Floyd justice
53:51
Speaker 13: and police and that we had two black men in
53:54
Speaker 13: the US Senate trying to figure out how to hash
53:57
Speaker 13: out a deal with that legislation, him Scott Republican out
54:01
Speaker 13: of South Carolina, Corey Booker, a Democrat out of New Jersey,
54:05
Speaker 13: discussing and trying to figure out how to make it happen,
54:08
Speaker 13: but to no avail. They couldn't get it done, and
54:11
Speaker 13: that locked down a lot of black people in particularly
54:13
Speaker 13: a lot of people of color in young people, millennials
54:16
Speaker 13: especially to be not necessarily be hopeful in the democratic
54:22
Speaker 13: process and into politics. Another thing that let us down
54:26
Speaker 13: and just recently happened, the voting rights sack, the overturning
54:30
Speaker 13: of the voting right sack. How the Supreme Court just
54:33
Speaker 13: got it just a few weeks ago, and in under
54:36
Speaker 13: Democratic leadership on abiden we could have got the John
54:39
Speaker 13: Lewis voting rights and an advancement that done, but just couldn't.
54:43
Speaker 13: And so where are we meeting the moment in terms
54:46
Speaker 13: of Democratic party.
54:47
Speaker 10: We're tired of the establishment. We're tired of the status quote.
54:50
Speaker 13: We're tired of people just giving us the platitudes, the
54:52
Speaker 13: talking points just to tell us what we want to hear, Eric,
54:55
Speaker 13: we want leaders and fighters that are going to adhere
54:59
Speaker 13: to their urgency and the issues at hand, and that's
55:02
Speaker 13: why people are excited about Will. That's why they're excited
55:05
Speaker 13: about a duel. That's why they're excited about us and
55:08
Speaker 13: our candidacy for Congress and Michigan's thirteenth district.
55:11
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's August fourth, all those primaries, and Kyle Blonkwist
55:14
Speaker 6: over in somewhere else in Michigan.
55:16
Speaker 13: You're not Kyle, Yeah, yeah, he's in District one, So
55:20
Speaker 13: that's northern Michigan and then the entire Upper Peninsula.
55:24
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's you know, it's a kind of coalition of
55:27
Speaker 6: four candidates coming from different places but headed in the
55:30
Speaker 6: same direction in interesting ways. So Donovan McKinney, August fourth
55:34
Speaker 6: is the primary. Thanks so much for being here. That'll
55:38
Speaker 6: do it for us today, as always, Breakingpoints dot Com
55:40
Speaker 6: sign up for our new newsletter. Become a premium subscribers,
55:43
Speaker 6: you can support what we're doing. Chryslin Sager will be
55:46
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